Glorious Inner Strength

I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in (Ephesians 3:16 MSG)

I love getting Christmas cards, and I love to pray for people I love! When a card arrives in the mail I put it on a wall in my kitchen, and I leave the cards up well past when all the other decorations are put away. In the first weeks and months of the new year I use them as visual cues to pray for my friends and family.

When I looked at them each day last week my eye was always drawn to a particular friend’s card. Each time it happened I gently touched the photo of her sons smiling on the front and prayed for each member of her family by name.

A few days later I heard that said friend’s family was going through something pretty major, and it made sense then why God drew my eye to their photo each time I stood in front of the cards to pray. 

What kinds of prayers are you sending up these days?

In Ephesians, Paul prayed for the community in Ephesus to be “strengthened by his Spirit–not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength.” 

Are you praying that for the people you love? For my friend and her family, I prayed for comfort, healing, and peace. Now I’m adding glorious inner strength to that prayer!

Anyone can muscle their way through life using whatever strength they naturally possess to throw elbows and push their way through any obstacle in their path. Brute strength involves a lot of extra movement, though, and a lot of wasted energy and much bravado. The glorious inner strength Paul prays for his friends in Ephesus is less in-your-face, but it’s more graceful. Its movements are more intentional, and there is no bravado taking up energy that could be used for accomplishing good for the Kingdom. 

For my friend and her family, glorious inner strength might look like peace in the face of uncertainty and an unknown future. Glorious indeed!

When you pray for our communities and for the people we love, do you pray for that kind of strength? I pray for strength all the time for myself and for those I love, but truthfully it had never occurred to me to pray for a specific kind of it. Rest assured if you sent me a Christmas card I've already prayed that over you!

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